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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   23591 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026

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Claiming that "the left" mobilizes itself in defense of such people is misleading.

It's not the left as a whole, it is particular subsets of the left.

This judge is a Democrat. So is the prosecutor choosing to pursue Hendrix, the same prosector who let the kidnapping rapist off in the interests of justice.

If you don't want it to be all the left, then it can't be only Democrats, and it can't be professional partisans doing it.

It is the left, and the entire left gets to own this, first for bringing the rapist into the country, second for letting him rape with impunity, and third for protecting him from the native Americans who want him gone.

Yeah, these are professionals and elected officials with paid-up party membership, not a bunch of crazy kids on college campuses or activist e-outrage-chasers.

The social activism left has much, more more political power than the labour left (which the labour left claims is due to the capitalists hijacking actual leftism to replace it with this caricature which poses no threat to them.)

The labour left IS the social activism left. Every Pronoun Person also hates capitalism and billionaires.

Every Pronoun Person also hates capitalism and billionaires.

I think that's mostly true. However, it doesn't go the other way. Not every leftist who hates capitalism and billionaires is a social activism leftist of the "modern woke" variety.

They aren't. To quote the popular right-wing retort: "Stalin would have had these people shot."

The labour left is -- and I know this may come as a shock -- the people doing the actual labour who believe they should be paid more for it. Notice how they get basically nothing, while the LGBT people get every megacorp changing their logos and firing anyone who won't use pronouns. The labour advocacy is rhetorical only; the LGBT has the actual teeth.

In the USA, the institutional labor left has been thoroughly hollowed out and used as a skin suit by the social activism left; all of the major unions are dominated by professionalized bureaucrats who see success as getting more money from the government teat while maintaining coastal elite bona fides. Even union membership is increasingly of that class; the UAW is like a quarter grad student now. The traditional bread and butter unions are dead, to say nothing of the Harry Bridges wing.

Having actually been a blue collar union member before- they are increasingly disaligned from the institutional left because they're interested in preserving their own fiefdoms, and that generally takes the form of laws that allow them to box cost-insensitive customers into only using thoroughly unionized customers through contracts. That is the only thing they want from the government and in other ways they're often not particularly left aligned. They are not underpaid, but that varies from 'travel nurses' not underpaid to 'near sinecures'.

They are in no way marxists. They want more money for themselves and aren't interested in broader class struggles- their answer to non-union workers in the same field is 'should join the union', whether or not they'd let them.

Do the unions over there actually split from the rest of the left in this case or no?

I think the labour union left has much more in common with the Tucker Carlson right than the LGBT activists.

There isn't a 'labor union left'. There is a labor union faction in US politics, but it backed Trump in the last election, and is more or less just a corrupt machine.

No, they're the same, they vote the same, and there's no difference. None of the labor left are defending her because it's all the left, it always is.

It's a particular subset of the left that is also gunning for the other half of the left.

I claim it remains to the benefit of the nation (not to mention the median mottizen) that they not succeed at shivving the institutional left. I guess we'll see in Michigan how it goes with AES, although I heard Gretch is going to line up against him.

Most of the Democratic party is a subset of the left. See 2020 for examples of the left mobilizing itself in defense of such people.

Whether I like it or not, about half the country raise up mental defenses just like this to go on voting for this to continue.

Yeah, they'll agree these people are violent (they may even go so far as to admit they should be punished by the law), but it's not as big a deal as the fact that e.g. our hospitals are still not nationalized, which they want, so they will keep voting alongside these activists for the politicians who are sympathetic to both violent crazy criminals AND nationalizing hospitals.

Presently, there's not much to do about that.

If you've got 10 people seated around a table, and a Nazi violent dirtbag leftist sits down, and nobody gets up, you've got 11 Nazis violent dirtbag leftists. The simple truth is that activists can forcefully occupy territory in downtown Madison, a jurisdiction controlled entirely by the left from the city council all the way up to the governor, because they have enough political power within the left coalition to make it politically infeasible to send in riot cops or the national guard.

If you've got 10 people seated around a table, and a Nazi violent dirtbag leftist sits down, and nobody gets up, you've got 11 Nazis violent dirtbag leftists.

This is not true whether we're talking about Nazis or about violent leftists.

The simple truth is that activists can forcefully occupy territory in downtown Madison, a jurisdiction controlled entirely by the left from the city council all the way up to the governor, because sending in the national guard to break it up is not politically feasible.

There are leftist activists in all parts of the US. However, leftist territory occupations that are permitted by the local leftist authorities are extremely rare. And the overwhelming majority of the time, leftist violence is met with police reaction.

It's never been true. It may be necessary, however, to act this way.

leftist territory occupations that are permitted by the local leftist authorities are extremely rare.

Yet when it happens literally not a single leftist or democrat speaks out against it

I seem to recall left-wingers and Democrats criticising CHAZ, for instance, while it existed. There were people who praised it, and plenty more who were willing to tolerate it, and I think that is worthy of condemnation, but you set the bar at literally zero, and there were more than literally zero who criticised it.

Were there not enough? Certainly. Did the incident show the weakness and timidity of the party? Absolutely. But - more than zero.

I seem to recall left-wingers and Democrats criticising CHAZ, for instance, while it existed.

Name a single elected official at the federal level or high ranking unepected party member that did this.

(And to preempt the accusations of moving the goalposts obviously I didn't mean twitter randos, it's possible to find some of those saying nearly anything no matter how zany)

Yes, it's of course trivially easy to find left-wingers in general criticising it at the time. Plenty of outright communists, even, criticised it as bad praxis. So in the broadest sense, the statement that I made is correct.

You've now narrowed the claim. I don't think that's bad faith, since setting goalposts is necessary, but you did just narrow it to federal elected official, which is a significantly narrower category than 'Democrat'. I do not have an example of a federal elected Democrat who took a strong stance opposing it. My read is that this was mostly polarisation - Republicans were strongly condemning it, and Democrats generally don't want to say the same things as Republicans. Since in this case they had the option of dodging the question by saying it's a local matter, they took it.

For local Democrats, well, they eventually sent in the police and shut it down, but I'm guessing you wouldn't count anything from Jenny Durkan or any of the police?

She certainly shut it down eventually but this was after months of supporting it. I don't believe any of her actions showed any opposition to the movement itself, just that the fact that the bad optics of weekly murders threatened to make her look bad.

For local Democrats,

I'm certainly open to hearing of any other democrat officials strongly against it, preferably in the highest positions of power possible.

We have a prosector and a judge in the Hendrix case, so I think it's fair to hold you to at least that level of participation and prominence.

m guessing you wouldn't count anything from Jenny Durkan or any of the police?

Not unless it came before the murders. Not unless it was the unwavering and unchanging stance expressed consistently throughout.

I remember, they gave up the police station because they didn't want to police the rioters. They might even have mouthed something about how bad this was, but they let it happen in the first place.

Local democrats called it the summer of love until there were multiple murders so…yeah they don’t get much credit.

Yes, it's of course trivially easy to find left-wingers in general criticising it at the time. Plenty of outright communists, even, criticised it as bad praxis. So in the broadest sense, the statement that I made is correct.

Are you sure about this? That's not how I remember it. From what I recall mainstream Democrats circled the wagons around it, and the only communists that criticized it as bad praxis were /r/stupidpol types that routinely got called nazis themselves.

Well, looking at Reddit, I noticed threads like this. That's from June 15, about a week into CHAZ's existence, but prior to the murders that I think turned most people against it. There's also this one from the 18th, again early on but prior to the shootings. Also consider this from the 11th, which is mostly communists pointing and laughing at the anarchists.

I think the responses can roughly be split into three camps: 1) CHAZ is great, I'm thrilled, 2) interesting idea, wait and see, 3) pointless, it'll do nothing. (There are also, as far as I can tell, a few non-communists who jump on to criticise, but I'm not counting them here.)

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This is not true whether we're talking about Nazis or about violent leftists.

Why do you recon not a single leftwinger stood up and said that, back when it was a fashionable thing to say, even on our forum?

When are you talking about? 2020 or thereabouts? That was when the Motte was still on Reddit, right? How many left-wingers did the Motte even have then?

No, somewhere between 2016 and 2020. Back on /r/ssc.

Either way people tend to undersell thr amount of left wingers that are present even now. We have more left wingers here now than there are right wingers on any subreddit.

I think that would only be possible with a pretty idiosyncratic definition of left and right-wing.

Why? We literally did have people saying "If you've got 10 people seated around a table, and a Nazi sits down, and nobody gets up, you've got 11 Nazis.". They were somehow magically right wing? Apolitical?

I've found it helpful to ask them, just so we're sure we understand each other, what specifically is so bad about nazis. Like, the mass murder, sure, but that's fairly historically common. What is it about nazis in particular?

Obviously some people take the question very poorly, but that saves us both a lot of time.

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The trick however, is that the other subsets absolutely NEVER police or rein in the subsets doing the ridiculous stuff, and will, on occasion, throw their weight behind them. Can you find me a SINGLE prominent lefty who denounced the general celebratory reactions to Charlie Kirk's murder? Just one!

This is so obvious that I don't feel I have to provide supporting examples but believe me I CAN DO SO.

Meanwhile, the right is vociferous and active about expelling those who might be too Nazi-esque. Graham Platner would have been shot out of a trebuchet had he run as a Republican the moment the tattoo issue arose. But since he's a Dem, the hemming and hawing continued until literal forcible rape allegations surfaced.

You tell me how we should differentiate between the hard lefties and the moderates when the hard lefties get to operate unfettered where-ever the moderate lefties have power.

If you tacitly approve of them, I don't see any reason to let you distance yourself from them. The 'subsets' in question are far more cohesive on one side, so they operate more like a single set. Heuristically is much simpler to treat them as one unit, and apply accountability to it as a whole.

Cenk Uygur?

What happened to Charlie Kirk is one of the worst things that has happened in American politics. My heart goes out to his family. FUCK WHOEVER DID THIS! Not only is it deeply tragic by itself, but we are now all in danger. Violence is always wrong and it's intellectual surrender.

The Turkish communist?

I don't know his work in detail but I think you could call him a "prominent lefty".

Can you find me a SINGLE prominent lefty who denounced the general celebratory reactions to Charlie Kirk's murder? Just one!

To give credit where credit is due, Gavin Newsome and Bill Maher both took a hard line against Kirk's killing. At the same time I feel like the degree of push-back and reputational damage they appear to have incurred for doing so, kind of proves your point.

Can you find me a SINGLE prominent lefty who denounced the general celebratory reactions to Charlie Kirk's murder? Just one!

Most prominent Democrats condemned the murder. It is tricky to find specific cases of one condemning people who celebrated the murder, but that's particularly because there are so few prominent people who celebrated it. I notice college Democrats and Republicans collaborating, and their statements seem to imply, to me, that celebrating political violence is bad. Sometimes Democrats have opposed attempts to crack down on and punish people who celebrated his death, but that's a free speech issue, much the same way that defending the vulgar woman in the top-level comment does not mean you support swearing at black people.

However, in that interview, Chris Murphy said this: "First, it is important for us to recognize and say that political violence is unacceptable. We don't yet know the full motives of this shooter, but there have been political assassinations and political assassination attempts that are due to right-wing radicalism and left-wing radicalism, and there should be no one in this country and no one on the left that is celebrating what happened here."

I take that as a clear denunciation of people who celebrate Charlie Kirk's murder.

Meanwhile, the right is vociferous and active about expelling those who might be too Nazi-esque.

How do you define 'Nazi-esque'? Does, say, Tucker Carlson interviewing Darryl Cooper, and remaining an influential figure on the right, count? Cooper certainly seems Nazi-esque.

(I should say that I don't think that's an issue unique to the right, and it seems to me to be isomorphic to tankies on the left. Darryl Cooper defends the Nazis, Hasan Piker defends Mao, you can see the same pattern working out regardless of side.)

Somewhat infamously the house Dems shouted down a resolution to condemn the killing of Kirk.

I don't blame them for that, same as I don't blame them for not applauding during Trump's SotU address. It's a pointless move to score political points, and I wouldn't blame Republicans if they didn't follow along were the Dems to do something similar.

Once again, it's always all of them.

Can you find me a SINGLE prominent lefty who denounced the general celebratory reactions to Charlie Kirk's murder? Just one!

I'm not sure how prominent you would consider her, but...

THANK YOU!

I recognised her from a 7.5-year-old video that I'd failed to find 2.5 years ago, and was able to fulfil my IOU-a-source.

She's not lefty?

Quite prominent, but your argument would be better served if you found an example of someone who isn't regularly called a Nazi.

Do people accuse Philosophy Bear of being a Nazi?

Dunno, never heard of him.

You tell me how we should differentiate between the hard lefties and the moderates when the hard lefties get to operate unfettered where-ever the moderate lefties have power.

This seems untrue to me:

  • ChatGPT says that 24 people received prison time in connection to the Kenosha riots, and not all were federal charges.
  • You can't expect to throw a brick through the front window of a bank in San Francisco next to a cop and just walk away.
  • The NYPD arrested more than 70 anti-ICE protestors at the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building on September 18, 2025.
  • If you murder a rich person in Boston because you are a communist, the cops are actually going to try to arrest you.
  • CHOP/CHAZ in Seattle was shot down by police after 3 weeks, not allowed to continue.

Etcetera.

ChatGPT says that 24 people received prison time in connection to the Kenosha riots, and not all were federal charges.

I like the weasel wording "not all were" in here.

Google gemini tells me that "Most of these state dispositions resulted in probation, community service, or local jail time under a year, rather than extended state prison terms... Overall, fewer than 20 people overall received formal prison or significant jail sentences, with the longest and most severe sentences coming directly from the federal convictions."

The NYPD arrested more than 70 anti-ICE protestors at the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building on September 18, 2025.

Yeah, arrested, and what happened to them?

CHOP/CHAZ in Seattle was shot down by police after 3 weeks, not allowed to continue.

You're writing as if the three weeks was just them preparing to do something, like an army bringing in forces. No, the three weeks was because they deliberately refused to do anything about it and left it alone on purpose.

CHOP/CHAZ in Seattle was shot down by police after 3 weeks, not allowed to continue.

It was allowed for three weeks in the first place, which was itself an act of insane leftism. Leftist mayor ordered CoP to abandon the precinct.

three weeks

Shorter than the Paris Commune

2 months, 1 week and 3 days

The city leadership also intentionally and illegally deleted text messages to avoid any culpability. https://mynorthwest.com/local/judge-evidence-thousands-texts-top-seattle-officials-deleted-text-messages/3786557

CHOP/CHAZ in Seattle was shot down by police after 3 weeks, not allowed to continue.

Oh man. This little clip was BURNED into my memory. Cops literally just pack up and leave an area they are in theory charged with patrolling. "Bye folks, good luck, hope you didn't think we had any cognizable duty to protect you or anything."

The Mayor of Seattle said we might have a Summer of Love. I cannot tell you how quickly that particular quote led me to conclude that moderate lefties are I-D-I-O-T-S with their mindsets stuck in the freaking '60s.

I still remember Raz of the Chaz walking around with firearms.

And it ended because a teenager died. The NEXT day the cops returned, showing they could have stopped this all along. How can you conclude anything other than the leadership allowing it on purpose?

If the Moderate lefties had reined in the extremists at the start that might have been avoided. They did not. I feel no problem with holding them accountable for these outcomes.

Or, you know, Occupy Wall Street, which went on for like Two Months. Obama was cool with that bunch.

This is the whole point, the Democratic Socialists of America openly say they're looking to infiltrate the party and these are guys that basically supported the October 7th attacks against Israel. If the Dems haven't clocked who they're in bed with they never will. Or they don't care.

Just a small taste of Why I do not want to share a country with these people. They tolerate extremist, violent behavior to the extent it is instrumental to their preferred goals, and act ignorant of second order effects.

Jordan Peterson used to talk about how he would ask liberals what it would look like for the left to go too far and very few could ever answer. Conservatives rarely had an issue with explaining what too far right would look like.

Its largely my point about why I personally prefer red tribe to blue tribe because red tribe is much more genuine.

If they think throwing alleged communists out of helicopters is a cool thing, they'll usually just say it.

Blue Tribers will circumlocute forever rather than admit to any particular hard limit to lefty activism, even if they might not themselves support a given action.

Because, as I learned a LONG time ago, "no bad tactics, only bad targets" is a lefty mantra for a reason.

It's one of the main things that codes the conflict style of the right as masculine and the left as feminine.

I think the story of CHAZ shows that Democratic cities will not, indeed, let leftist activists get away with whatever they want to. Which is what you claimed in your previous post ("operate unfettered").

I agree that Seattle allowed them to get away with too much in that case.

They did let them get away with everything up to murder. They let them get away with it, they allowed it to happen in the first place because they did not have the will to stop it.

Is your position now that the limit of tolerance for left wing extremism is teenagers dying?

Just want to make that as clear as possible.

And it ended because a teenager died.

I don't know if it was the same incident, but I also recall a story about a black kid dying because a bunch of lefties filled his car with bullets, and immediately went on twitter to brag about how they killed a fascist (and then promptly purged the tweets). Though I thought that happen earlier in the zone's existence, and it went on for a week or two more after that.

At 12:50 into this video, you can see the terrorists and their supporters clearing up shell casings and thanking each other after the final set of shootings. Of course, none were charged with destroying evidence, not even the woman who posted video evidence of the crimes.

ETA: More video of the shootings. Highlights include the assailants asking, “Oh, you’re not dead, huh?” and “Yo, do you want to get pistol-whipped?” immediately before the final, executing shot.

There's probably hundreds of little incidents in that vein that it would be all but impossible to find a record of.

Occupy Wall Street, with all those tent cities, was allegedly a hotbed for rape

Can't draw a HARD conclusion either way, the incentive to propagandize is large, but it was happening.

Storytime!

So there were two different shooting incidents. One happened on the east side of Cal Anderson (the park in central Capitol Hill which partially encompassed CHAZ) kinda by 11th between Howell and Olive. The other one happened on its southern edge on Pine more or less in front of what was then the Rhino Room/is now Couch. The first one I was present for. I was over between the reflecting and wading pools, to the west of where the shots were coming from. A CHAZ pickup truck peeled off in the opposite direction northbound, west of the reflecting pool. I was informed by a blue haired 5'4 CHAZ security deputy that the trucl was their chief of security. When I asked him(her?them?) why they didn't investigate the gunshots, the deputy told me they were unarmed, and had also been awake for over 24 hours. The shooting was believed to be gang-related, but I don't think was ever solved. The fact that CHAZ security collected all the shell casings surely did not help.

The second incident involved the two teenagers who if I recall correctly stole a car and drove it through a barricade on accident and were stopped by gunfire. Recordings of the incident that were uploaded strongly implied that they were executed after initial gunshots stopped them ("You're still breathing? BA-BAM"). This was the episode that precipitated the reestablishment of SPD control and the end of CHAZ/CHOP. I believe their families later sued the city.

Honorable mention goes to legendary highly-documented homeless tweaker Travis Berge who killed his homeless girlfriend with a board with a nail, broke into the pump house for the wading pool, climbed into a vat of chlorine, and drowned in it.

Incidentally, in the lefty scenes I ran in at the time, the only anger I ever heard expressed was for the two activists killed by accident while dancing on I-5. People were certain it was an intentional right-wing attack, and when it was revealed that the driver was in fact a confused immigrant who had driven onto the freeway around "do not enter" signs, the episode was forgotten.

Didn't CHAZ learn the hard way how it's not easy to run even a few blocks without shooting some unarmed black kids for acting suspicious, and thence lose the mandate of heaven, before anyone thought to shut them down?

3 weeks!! Seems to counter your argument

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